The July/August issue of the Harvard Business Review features an article from our sister program the Customer Contact Council: Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers.  Their research shows that in the contact center, “delighting” the customer yields only marginal additional loyalty. 

They also found that customers are four times more likely to leave a service interaction with the contact center disloyal as compared to loyal, and the primary thing companies can do to mitigate this disloyalty in the service channel is to focus on reducing the effort customers must put forth to get their issues resolved. 

So, the moral of the story is that loyalty in the contact center environment is a matter of reducing effort, not delighting the customer. 

MREB view: People frequently ask us: “What is the best satisfaction metric?” Half of the answer is above – a good metric predicts real business outcomes. Loyalty is a great example when measured as actual repurchase or share of wallet. For an example see how FedEx ties its satisfaction metrics to solid business outcomes.

The second half of the answer reminds us of another argument popular in Research circles: to NPS or not to NPS?  We’ve spoken with researchers on both sides of the NPS debate and found that even those most happily using the metric aren’t using it as a tell-all number: it’s all about ease of communication.  Folks like NPS because the metric is inherently easy to understand, communicate, and take action on. 

Anti-NPS researchers and those who use the metric actually share the same success factors for their loyalty measurement programs:

• Organizational Fit for the Metric
• Executive Buy-In
• Persistent “Selling”
• Action-Focused Measurement
• Thorough Diagnostics
  (Read more detail on these factors here)

So two rules of thumb for the satisfaction question. Does the metric result in a meaningful business outcomes? And is it embedded into your organization so that it results in action? 

Have you had a similar outcome at your organization?  Where do you stand on the NPS debate?  Tell us about it in the comments section here or start your own metric debate on our Primary Research Forum.